Page 52
Story: The Curator (Washington Poe)
‘Have you got two minutes?’ she said.
They followed her down the corridor and into her office.
‘No DI Flynn today?’ she asked.
‘She’s not feeling great,’ Poe said. ‘She’s up to date with everything we’ve done, though. Still making sure we stay out of trouble.’
Nightingale cracked a tired smile. She looked exhausted. Bleary, bloodshot eyes in shrunken sockets. The pallid skin of someone who hasn’t spent enough time outside. Yesterday’s clothes hung on the back of her door.
‘You OK, ma’am?’ Poe asked.
‘Have you got anything for me, Sergeant Poe?’
She sounded frustrated. Poe understood why. With the surveillance of the kite, she’d called a play that wasn’t working. It hadn’t been the wrong play but if her assistant chief asked another force to undertake a progress review, the detectives coming in would have had eight hours sleep and be armed with twenty-twenty hindsight. Their first question would be about her effective resource strategy. A large number of detectives had been taken out of the mainstream investigation to watch the tree. So far she’d got nothing for it.
‘It’s possible the kite logos were provided by a printer in Newcastle,’ he said. ‘We don’t have a name but we’ve tracked the parcel to a courier firm in Carlisle. We’ve narrowed down the list of names they gave us from seventy to eleven.’
Nightingale didn’t ask how he had convinced ANL Parcels to provide their customer details. Poe suspected she already knew. Flynn had probably told her.
Poe handed her the Mole People’s profiles.
‘Anyone stand out?’ she said after she’d flicked through them.
Poe told her that Robert Cowell was statistically their most likely suspect.
‘How likely?’ she asked.
‘Under ten per cent.’
Nightingale frowned. ‘We can only surprise him once. If we rush in now and find nothing – and let’s face it he’s hardly put a foot wrong so far – then he’ll be out in twenty-four hours and he’ll either disappear or clean up.’
‘We had a look at his house this morning,’ Poe said.
‘Who told you to do that?’ she said sharply.
‘We weren’t peeping through his letterbox, ma’am, we drove past quickly with a fixed camera.’
‘And?’
‘Nothing,’ he admitted. ‘Nice estate. Quiet. One of those new builds cropping up everywhere.’
‘So we’re back to watching the tree, hoping the killer comes back for the kite.’
Poe said nothing. At some point, no matter how hard it was, you had to cut bait. Stop throwing good detectives into a bad gig. He shuddered to think how many investigative hour
s had been lost watching a tree.
‘You could put a team on Cowell,’ Poe said.
Nightingale let out a long sigh. It sounded like she was deflating.
‘I don’t have unlimited resources, Poe,’ she said. ‘I’ll need to speak to the chief. See if she can stretch the budget. She might not, though – not for a one-in-ten chance.’
Poe didn’t push it. He wasn’t convinced that Cowell was their man either.
Chapter 34
The expert in semiotic studies, clearly enjoying a rare moment of employment, looked like he was auditioning for Doctor Who. He wore a tweed trench coat and a scarf, and had sweeping hair he had to keep flicking out of his eyes.
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 43
- Page 44
- Page 45
- Page 46
- Page 47
- Page 48
- Page 49
- Page 50
- Page 51
- Page 52 (Reading here)
- Page 53
- Page 54
- Page 55
- Page 56
- Page 57
- Page 58
- Page 59
- Page 60
- Page 61
- Page 62
- Page 63
- Page 64
- Page 65
- Page 66
- Page 67
- Page 68
- Page 69
- Page 70
- Page 71
- Page 72
- Page 73
- Page 74
- Page 75
- Page 76
- Page 77
- Page 78
- Page 79
- Page 80
- Page 81
- Page 82
- Page 83
- Page 84
- Page 85
- Page 86
- Page 87
- Page 88
- Page 89
- Page 90
- Page 91
- Page 92
- Page 93
- Page 94
- Page 95
- Page 96
- Page 97
- Page 98
- Page 99
- Page 100
- Page 101
- Page 102
- Page 103
- Page 104
- Page 105
- Page 106
- Page 107
- Page 108
- Page 109
- Page 110
- Page 111
- Page 112
- Page 113
- Page 114
- Page 115
- Page 116
- Page 117
- Page 118
- Page 119
- Page 120
- Page 121
- Page 122
- Page 123
- Page 124
- Page 125
- Page 126
- Page 127
- Page 128
- Page 129
- Page 130
- Page 131
- Page 132
- Page 133
- Page 134
- Page 135
- Page 136
- Page 137
- Page 138